“You’ll live to be 200, then,” I said.
“Older,” she murmured in reply. “Such a pity that you will cease to be functional, let alone attractive, in one-tenth that time.”
My ears turned as red as the beet I saw in Susan’s bowl. No, that was a turnip. My ears turned as purple as a turnip. “You think me attractive,” I said to my knees, one side of my face smiling. Susan rolled her eyes. I didn’t see it, but it was obvious she had. Consider us, though:
I in my fourth decade, married once, wife an ocean away, and never coming back. I missed her often, but recovered quickly by remembering what an idiot she thought me: She had been sentenced to transportation to America for forgery. Those few words sum up an elaborate set of facts she thought all along she was keeping from me. At the end she said she was leaving me of her own accord, to join some second cousin-branch of her family in the New World. I was expected to believe this, notwithstanding that I keep two eyes on the criminal proceedings at Old Bailey to make my living… but never mind. At least she wasn’t sentenced to hang – you can be, for forgery – because writing her Account would have been awkward.
And then Susan, a beautiful 23-year-old; small, but densely packed; long hair very nearly the red of embers, and ever a-bun; widowed six years; an ass any man would be delighted to wallop. Passionate, determined, more confident than I – more everything than I – and fundamentally good. She rolled her eyes at things I said? Well, that meant she was listening to them. I would cheerfully suffer the indignity. (I should add that Susan was beautiful to me. I had punched a man in the nose once for a remark about her that included the words “horse face,” not only